Into the Light
by oppex
Summary: AU dimension traveling. The war against Voldemort lasted too long and the toll of life was too high for Harry to feel peaceful afterwards, no matter how he tried. Fawkes gives him what might be a second chance...or a second dose of pain.
1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter sat on Hogwarts lawn, head resting on his knees. Barely two weeks previously, he had stood his ground in the Great Hall and ended Voldemort's reign of terror for good. After four years of surviving dungeons and ambushes and hiding in the wild, that victory couldn't have delayed any longer and spared Harry his sanity. As it was, it had been a close call—Harry had witnessed the deaths of more friends than he cared to recall. Ron, Hermione, Luna, Tonks and Remus…the death toll was high and painful and left Harry with enough emotional scars to match his physical ones. Multiple encounters with Death Eaters and Voldemort himself had left Harry with a face more reminiscent of Alastor Moody than the fair visage he had once sported. Long, unkempt hair, extensive facial disfigurement, baggy eyes and a gentle, continous trembling of his hands—this was the pathetic picture that the once noble-looking Harry Potter made.

In truth, it had been quite some time since Harry had given the slightest care about his appearance. It had been quite some time since he had given the slightest care about anything, really, except perhaps killing Voldemort. With that task completed, Harry was beginning to wonder if life was worth living at all.

Of course, there was a small, rational part of him that pointed out that between his blatant and horrifying overexposure to the Cruciatus Curse and the various other war-time traumas he had experienced, he should just check himself into St. Mungo's and stay for a while. But despite this small and rational voice, Harry couldn't bring himself to do anything beside sit and wait. What was he waiting for? Death, perhaps, or some sort of epiphany.

An epiphany in the form of Fawkes the pheonix, for example. Harry slowly rose to his feet out of a dim sense of respect as the pheonix circled above him, then came to hover in from of him using his expansive wings as leverage.

"'lo, Fawkes," he said quietly, tentatively reaching out to stroke the pheonix's head. But as he made contact with the soft feathers that adorned the pheonix, something unexpected happened: his world went black.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't unconsciousness that Harry was experiencing; no, it was more like a total absence of light and sound combined with the always-disconcerting squeezed feeling of apparation.

Light and sound returned to him at the same time the ground did and Harry landed with a crack as his arm met cobblestone at an unfortunate angle. A tall stack of wooden crates toppled onto his back before he could properly respond to the initial fall and pull himself up, as though adding insult to injury. Stunned by the fall and in increasing amounts of pain thanks to his broken arm and sorely assaulted back, Harry lay gaping in the alleyway that he had landed in, unable to motivate himself to movement even as a nearby door was thrown open and a rough male voice reached his ears.

"How many times do I have to tell you kids not to make a ruckus back here? This is private property, dammit, and if I find you've broken anything--" the man cut off his own rant as he realized that the only perpetrator to be found was Harry, languishing under the very merchandise he had been worrying about. "Oh, for Merlin's sake."

The man began grudgingly lifting the crates off of Harry, allowing him to sit up (albeit slowly) and view his rescuer. Tall, semi-muscular, graying and sporting a canvas apron, Harry could only assume the man was some sort of shopkeeper. Could Fawkes have sent him to Diagon Alley? Was he supposed to be benefitting from a change in scenery?

Harry was confused and he paused to think on the possibilities—for too long, as he discovered when the irritated shopkeep snapped his fingers in Harry's face. "I'm…I'm sorry?" Harry said, not sure if the man had actually spoken or not.

"I said, do you have a name? Are you slow or just rude?" the man snapped in return, clearly low on patience.

"Sorry," Harry muttered. "Name's Potter." And, he thought to himself, he should probably figure out where he was and how he could get back to Hogwarts.

"Fine. You can call me Mr. Jones. What did you do to your arm?"

"It's nothing," Harry said immediately, finally getting to his feet. "Sorry to have made a mess." But before he could try and leave the dead-en d alley, Jones put himself between Harry and the entrance. "Where do you think you're going? I'm taking you straight to St. Mungo's. There's no way in hell I'm letting you walk off and tell who knows how many people that you got injured at Jones' Medical Supply and old Jones didn't do anything about it. I'm not losing business over you, kid." And he pointed at what was apparently the back door to his shop, expectantly, with a sour look on his face.

Harry couldn't believe it. Was this crazy old man accusing him of breaking his arm on purpose? For the first time in months, Harry felt a real spark of emotion. However, it wasn't enough to get a reaction from the apathetic young man. Instead, he just gave a resigned sigh and entered the shop, Jones following close behind.

One floo trip later, Harry found himself seated between the increasingly cranky Mr. Jones and a snoozing young woman who appeared to have been hexed rather severely. Realizing he was unlikely to get any sort of conversation from the two, he spared the newspaper Jones had picked up at the entrance an idle glance. There didn't seem to be anything of interest on the front page; apparently February 3, 2001 had started out boring for the rest of wizarding Britain as well.

Harry contented himself with this knowledge as dozed off himself. He was awakened some time later by Jones ruffling the newspaper at him. Understanding the gesture, Harry took the paper with his functioning hand and examined the front page as Jones slouched in his seat, presumably to take his own little nap. The news really was boring; there wasn't even an update on the tentatively rebuilding government on the front page, an installation which had become normal in the days since Voldemort's demise. Harry found this odd. Had the editors shifted such matters to a different page? Harry frowned and checked the list of other features at the top of the page. Quidditch scores, editor's column, hobby corner…but no mention of what Harry was looking for.

He skimmed over the date once, twice, three times before realizing that something was off about it, too. Harry certainly hadn't been keeping up with the days of the month—he had barely been keeping track of the days of the week. But he was fairly certain that the year was 2001. Why, then, was this newspaper dated February 1991?

"That's impossible," he muttered, then rested the newspaper on his lap in order to poke Jones in the side and wake him up. "Why did you pick up such an old newspaper?"

Jones responded with no less than a surly glare. "It's got today's date on it, hasn't it?"

"No," Harry insisted. "This paper's ten years old. There's no relevant news in here." He wasn't sure why he was pressing the matter—outdated magazines and books were a staple of waiting rooms, after all—but the more he thought about it the more uncomfortable he felt, as though a sort of wrongness was pressing on him. Without his realizing, the shaking in his hands increased to reflect his mood.

"Merlin, kid, are you sure you can read? That's a nine, not an eight. Nineteen _ninety_ one. It'll be just my luck if you've hit your head, too…"

Harry gaped at Jones, aghast. Surely the old man was just pulling his leg, and yet…the feeling of wrongness was only increasing. Could Fawkes really have sent him back in time? Did phoenixes have that kind of power?

More importantly, how was he supposed to survive in a world where he couldn't exist as himself?


	3. Chapter 3

Harry's day just kept getting worse.

"Your name? Sir?" the nurse repeated, ignoring the increasingly dumbfounded look on Harry's face. He was probably assuming that Harry was in shock from the pain of his clearly wounded arm. In reality, Harry was just attempting to wrap his mind around the fact that he could actually have traveled in time.

"I told you he hit his head," Jones butted in. "On purpose, no doubt, to ruin my good reputation."

"A concussion, then," the nurse said dryly, giving Jones a vaguely annoyed look over the top of his clipboard. "Perhaps the patient should be allowed to answer a few questions himself."

Jones huffed and turned his head. Satisfied, the nurse proceeded to ask Harry a series of questions designed to assess his mental state. He made him count fingers, follow a quill with his eyes, and identify colors and shapes.

Finally, after what to Harry felt like an eternity, the nurse brought the questioning to a close. "Just a few more questions," he assured Harry. "Can you tell me what year it is?"

Harry took a deep breath. This was the moment of truth. "1991, sir."

"Good, good," the nurse said, and made a note on his clipboard. Harry felt like the world had been yanked out from under him. "And who is the current minister of magic?"

"Cornelius Fudge," Harry managed faintly. Please, he thought, let the nurse tell him he was wrong.

"Well, if you did hit your head, you don't seem to be suffering from any ill side-effects. Congratulations, Mr…"

The nurse looked at Harry expectantly, putting him on the spot. He couldn't say Potter, it could raise suspicions and potentially lead to meeting himself, which would cause all sorts of problems. And yet he had already given the name Potter to Jones. What was he going to do?...

The look on the nurse's face told him he had run out of time to think. "Uh…Smith. Potter Smith."

The made-up name sounded stupid to Harry's ears, but the nurse seemed to accept it as he made a few final notes on his clipboard and left to send a Healer in to repair Harry's broken arm.

Thirty minutes and many concerned remarks about the nerve damage in his body later, Harry stepped out of the floo at Jones' Medical Supply, both arms intact along with most of his dignity. Jones was close behind him.

"Well, there we are. Half the morning wasted," the older man said crossly as he shooed Harry towards the front entrance of his shop. "And you can just step off, Smith. You've been enough trouble today!"

And so Harry found himself propelled out of the shop and into the bustling crowds of Diagon Alley. He had no wand, a cloak barely suited for winter weather, and not a single knut to his name. What was he going to do?

Harry pressed himself against the side of the building, both to avoid being swept into the bustle on the street and to give himself time to think. Where could he find resources when it wasn't safe to seek out anyone he knew? The answer came to him as a dim hope: Gringotts. Surely, as a Potter, he could access some sort of family vault, even out of his own time.

The walk to the famed bank took him a little longer than it once would have—the war had left its mark on Harry, physically as well as mentally, and he found it easier to move slowly than to hurry. And even in this semi-urgent situation, Harry couldn't bring himself to worry too much or even to care for his own survival. Anyway, surely the goblins of Gringotts would have his solution…

Harry had to wait his turn in line, as all people do. Unlike many people, however, he found himself being subjected to stares and whispering, no doubt because of his disfigured face and unkempt appearance. It had been a very long time since Harry had been out in public, but the negative attention was still a bit of a shock to him. He wondered, distantly, if Moody had felt this way all the time.

Fortunately, Harry didn't have to wait long for a teller. "Key, please," the goblin at the counter intoned blandly.

"Ah, I don't exactly have one," Harry admitted quietly. "I was hoping that I could access a vault based on…I don't know, familial status? Blood?"

The goblin's scowl intensified. "_Key_, please," he repeated, annoyance now evidenced in his voice.

Harry was silent for a long moment as he considered how to proceed. "I…seem to have misplaced it," he said finally.

"Tough," the goblin snapped, and followed it up immediately with "Next customer!"

Harry, now faced with making a slightly-less-than-graceful exit or being forcefully evicted by goblin guards, chose to admit defeat and leave before they could make him.

Once outside the ancient bank, Harry found himself wandering aimlessly. He had no money, no wand, and no place to go, and yet…somehow, he just couldn't bring himself to care. It was fortunate, he supposed, that he was at least used to not having food or a roof over his head, because it looked like he was going to be sleeping on the street for at least one night.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Harry awoke feeling stiff but otherwise as apathetic as ever. Somehow, sleeping on cobblestone was even _more_ uncomfortable than sleeping on packed dirt. He stretched, ran a hand through his hair and staggered back onto the main street of Diagon Alley.

He wandered aimlessly, vaguely hoping that moving about would give him some idea of what to do. As he drifted down the street, he forced himself to ignore the suspicious and even fearful stares he received. No doubt people with Harry's appearance were more commonly found in the seedier Knockturn Alley.

Just as Harry was preparing himself for the possibility of finding an out-of-the-way alley to take a nap in when he realized that he was standing in front of Jones' Medical Supply.

"Proudly serving Britain since 1934," Harry read aloud thoughtfully. The slogan was printed below the sign on the shop in swirling script.

And then, with what could have safely been called intrigue in his voice, he read the sign in the front window. "Help wanted. I wonder…"

And so, after taking a moment to make himself look slightly more presentable (licking one's palm to smooth one's hair back isn't a very suave move, but at least Harry had the sense to use his left hand), Harry entered Jones' Medical Supply once more.

"Welcome to Jones', what can I do for you toda--" Mr. Jones' greeting died on his lips as he caught sight of Harry.

"_You_," he said, disbelief warring with disgust in his voice. "What're you doing back here, _Smith_?"

Harry shrugged listlessly. "There's a help wanted sign in the window. Mr. Jones."

"I need a shop boy, not a gruesome old man," Jones scoffed. "Trust you me, I know no-good layabouts when I see them!"

Were Harry in a better state of mind, he would have been angered by the language so often leveled at him by his late uncle. As it was, he simply shrugged again. "I'm only twenty, sir. And not too proud to do grunt work."

Jones now found himself in a dilemma. He had been seeking someone to fill this particular position in his shop for nearly a month now with no luck, and running the shop alone was far from easy. But he didn't trust this Smith man. For one thing, he couldn't be nearly so young as twenty. Jones had guessed him at thirty at the very least. And besides that, the unkempt appearance and gruesome scarring spoke of suspicious activity, perhaps even…_dark_ activities. What kind of person developed such an appearance in peaceful times?

While Jones debated himself over whether Harry was a risk worth taking, the potential employee in question stood patiently before the front counter, awaiting his decision. If he could land this job, then he could afford food, and if he was lucky a cheap flat. By this point in his life, he considered food and shelter a luxury more than anything else. But that didn't mean that, just as in his bland childhood at the Dursley's, he wished for more, in a place so deep in his subconscious that he wasn't even fully aware of it. Harry possessed a great desire in his soul; not just to live, but to live _well_ and be happy. No matter how scarred he became on the inside or outside, his soul would continue to guide him toward this ultimate goal.

"You get a week," Jones said abruptly, pulling Harry from his drifting thoughts. "One week, to prove that you're not some worthless bum. And I can terminate the deal at any time. Think you can _handle_ that?"

Jones was clearly trying to get a rise out of Harry, but Harry was in no state of mind to oblige him. After all, the man was sarcastic and seemed to be capable of verbal cruelty, but he was no Snape. Or Voldemort, for that matter.

"It's a deal," Harry said, finally allowing himself to look Jones in the eye. If the older man was startled by the intensity of his gaze, he didn't show it; instead, he simply leaned over the counter and presented his hand to shake on the arrangement.

Harry took the hand, not knowing the long and dangerous path that their deal would lead him on.


	5. Chapter 5

Hard work turned out to be much more relaxing than Harry remembered. For seven days now he had been working his ass off (only mostly figuratively) to prove himself to Mr. Jones, driven by a deep desire he couldn't name. The work was tiring, of course, but it took his mind off of…everything. The war that he had barely won, the friends he had lost, the fact that he was trapped in the past—all of it fell away while he focused on moving crates and stocking shelves and running errands.

Surprisingly enough, Jones had tossed a small pouch at Harry at the end of his second day in the shop and shooed him out with the harsh demand that Harry make himself "presentable for decent folk" before he came back. Inside it was enough money to pay for more than a week in Diagon's cheapest reputable inn, if Harry was careful about his spending.

The next day, Harry showed up for work wearing new (to him, at least) clothes and smelling like soap instead of body odor and stale air. Combined with clean hair (tied back to make working easier), it almost made Harry look like a respectable person. Almost.

Jones' only comment had been "Now if only you could replace that ugly mug of yours, too." Harry had ignored the snide tone and taken it as a compliment.

And now, on the seventh day of his "trial period", Harry was preparing to unload boxes in the back of the store. This was his first day to unload items directly into the stock room—previously he had simply moved boxes around for Mr. Jones and stocked the main shelves. This was why Jones was supervising him.

"You ever used a box cutter before, Smith?" he demanded as Harry brought in the first of the boxes.

"You mean a muggle box cutter, sir?" Harry had expected Jones to simply open the boxes with his wand, or perhaps with a ceremonial knife. That seemed to be a more wizardly style of things.

"Do you know of any _other_ kind of box cutter?" Jones' tone practically dripped with sarcasm.

"No, sir. I guess I just expected something a little more…magical." Harry shrugged half-heartedly. He hadn't meant to offend.

"This is a respectable, down-to-earth shop, Smith. We use _practical_ means to get our work done."

When Harry thought about it, this stance made sense. After all, he had yet to run into any task in the shop that required the use of a wand, something that Harry was very grateful for.

Jones spent a moment showing Harry how to use the box cutter, then another few moments showing him how the stock room was organized, then left to man the front counter.

Harry set to his task diligently, getting the first few boxes open with no problem and organizing the items within with fair speed. He found this kind of repetitive work to be…soothing, in a way.

The day wore on as Harry took breaks from his initial task to take care of other things in the shop. At first having to break his various tasks into chunks had seemed counterintuitive to Harry, but he had realized as the week went on that Jones was simply showing him the most efficient way to run a business with only two people on staff.

It was late that afternoon when Harry finally prepared to unload the last of the boxes for the stock room. He had ended up having to run several errands while Mr. Jones dealt with a relatively heavy influx of customers, so the backroom work had had to wait.

Fortunately, there was only one box still waiting to be unloaded. Harry retrieved the box cutter and set about getting into it…but not as carefully as he should have. He didn't even grunt in pain as the blade slipped and sliced his left thumb open, but he did stop and put the blade down. Harry frowned at his hand—what a stupid mistake—and then grabbed a conveniently-placed hand towel to staunch the bleeding.

Before he had time to do anything else about it, though, Mr. Jones' made himself known with a cold accusation.

"Bleeding all over the merchandise, now, are we?"

As he turned around to face his temporary employer, Harry could only hope that another trip to St. Mungo's—or worse, a call to magical law enforcement—wasn't in his future.


End file.
